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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 26, 2026

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With three days until Election Day, is there still enough time for the Democrats to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in Michigan?

Cenk Uygur's Rebellion PAC dropped a controversial new ad supporting the Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El Sayed featuring a grocery store conversation about Israel. Some are calling it the most antisemitic ad of all time:

"You're going to have to put those eggs back."

"They don't like eggs anymore?"

"No, they like eggs. But we have to set that $7 aside for killing Palestinians."

"What? I mean, don't we give Israel $4 billion a year anyways?"

"Yeah. And now we're giving them another $26 billion. Do you know how much that is per American taxpayer? It's like $161 per person."

"Apparently, it's costing us a lot of money to drop bombs on Gaza. It's terrible."

Now, I don't think this is a very good ad. It's poorly acted and a bit too on-the-nose, but accusing the political opposition of wasting money on unpopular special interests while regular citizens deal with rising prices is probably the most common political maneuver in modern American politics. Apparently, this ad is at the center of a possible last-minute fracture of the Michigan Democratic coalition.

Haley Stevens, El Sayed's defeated challenger in the dem primary, released an incredibly passive aggressive statement preemptively thanking El Sayed for his "Expected Condemnation of Antisemitic Campaign Advertisement". Amusingly, long-time TYT host Ceng Uygur has been demoted to "Hasan Piker's Uncle". In case you didn't catch the subtext, this is a threat to pull her support (as explained by Haley Stevens's fiance on TMZ for some reason?). Abdul appears to have no intention of disavowing the ad.

This doesn't seem to have affected El Sayed's chances in the prediction markets. He is now up to an 80% chance to win, but I guess we'll see what happens at the black church on Sunday.

The ad is pretty good. I don’t think normal people want to pay $2,000 per household to improve the lives of Jews 6,700 miles away, just twenty years after we spent $3,000,000,000,000 and 4,400 lives doing the same in Iraq. (Well, rather, half the cause of the Iraq war was Jewish lobbying, so $1.5 trillion and 2,200 American lives is the the tab owed by Jewish lobbyists). Haley Stevens’ husband is Jewish and she herself is considering converting to Judaism, and it seems that they’ve chosen to align their loyalty to the Jewish Nation and not America. This isn’t exactly unexpected.

I could literally say the same thing about thousands of things the U.S. government does. It spends massive sums of money. And the candidate whose ad this supports wants to spend an inordinate amount more via M4A. Yes, he obviously wants to cut Israeli aide (while probably increasing aide to Muslim countries) but on net will spend way more.

So it isn’t actually an argument about austerity or even foreign aide—it’s just hating on Israel. That is, it’s an isolated demand for rigor.

So it isn’t actually an argument about austerity or even foreign aide—it’s just hating on Israel. That is, it’s an isolated demand for rigor.

Yeah, when Trump made his ad attacking Kamala Harris for supporting government funded sex-change operations, no reasonable person tried to claim that it was mainly about budgeting and economic issues. It was obviously an attack on her support for gender ideology.

I realize that partisan hacks on the Republican side of things argued that the ad was really about "priorities," but come on.

Of course it was an attack on her support of gender ideology. Her views were insane and should be criticized. And she lost in part for having insane views.

Of course it was an attack on her support of gender ideology. Her views were insane and should be criticized. And she lost in part for having insane views.

Of course I agree with this 100%. My only point is that there were one or more Republican partisans who (presumably for strategic partisan reasons) went on the news and implied that the ad was really about budgetary priorities. Similar to the way in which one or more posters here are apparently trying to imply that the campaign ad here is really about budgetary priorities and isn't just "hating on Israel" as you put it.

Except here the sums are colossal as opposed to the amounts going to trans your kids.